Finally, it’s important to know the difference between alcohol headaches – also known as hangovers – and migraine. It’s important to talk about your symptoms and how alcohol affects you. Keeping track of your reactions can help you avoid triggers. This way, you can enjoy social events without worrying about headaches. Keeping track of how different drinks affect you can help you figure out which ones cause headaches.
Reducing or eliminating alcohol may reduce the frequency of migraine attacks. It may also help eliminate triggers that tend to co-occur with drinking, such as dehydration and sleep deprivation. Quantity is definitely a factor in whether drinking alcohol will trigger a headache, and the quality of alcohol probably plays a role as well. We do not know for sure, though, how any specific type of alcoholic beverage will affect people with migraine.
Migraine sufferers consume less alcohol, especially beer and liquors, and are more vulnerable to migraine-like hangover symptoms than nonsufferers. The finding that the tendency to develop migraine attacks affects the hangover symptomatology may suggest a similarity in pathophysiology, and possibly in treatment options. If you suffer from migraines, you may find that drinking alcohol can trigger an episode.
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Beer, especially those with lots of yeast, and spirits like whiskey and rum, are often culprits. Red wine is often a bigger problem because of its congener but also its high histamine and maybe even tyramine content. But, as always, different people react differently to different drinks. Environmental factors like bright lights, strong smells, and extreme temperatures can also lead to migraine and you might be guessing it by now, they all increase oxidative stress.
These include water, electrolyte drinks, bone broth, and diluted fruit juices. If alcohol is a confirmed trigger for your migraine, then avoiding alcohol is the best solution. If you’re unsure whether alcohol is triggering your migraine, keep a detailed migraine journal that includes any foods and alcohol consumed throughout the week.
If you’ve identified alcohol as a trigger for your migraine headaches, avoiding it altogether is probably best. The same is true if you find that some types of alcohol trigger your migraine headaches more than others. Though this study was well executed, its results only go so far.
Migraine episodes triggered by alcohol consumption typically happen within about an hour. Delayed alcohol headaches or hangovers generally take hours to start, such as the following day after a night of drinking too much. People with migraine who treat their attacks with certain drugs should avoid drinking alcohol because it may interact poorly or dangerously with their medications. When mixed with alcohol, the common migraine medication Topamax (topiramate) can cause dizziness, problems with memory, sleepiness, and even depression. Alcohol-related headaches can be a frustrating experience, especially for those who live with migraine.
This dilutes the effect of alcohol in your system and reduces the chance of an alcohol-induced headache or triggering a migraine attack. Some people drink water in between glasses of wine, for example. Always drink responsibly—which includes minimizing the chances that alcohol will affect your migraine. Current medical opinions on alcohol consumption are evolving with research, so it’s important to educate yourself on the effects of alcohol on your health. If you are struggling with alcohol abuse or other dependency issues, there are many resources that are ready to help. The questionnaires were filled without the presence of an interviewer, and did not include any recognizable data to assure full anonymity of the collected data.
How does alcohol content affect the likelihood of triggering a migraine?
- It’s important to stay updated on the latest migraine research and treatment strategies.
- Knowing these triggers helps people with migraine manage their condition better.
- Migraines and their triggers are very individual – what affects one person may cause no problems for the next.
- Rosen said some people he treats report being triggered by simply smelling alcohol.
Analyze your personal risk carefully, remembering that triggers are often additive. You can still have fun with everyone else, whether you decide to enjoy an alcoholic beverage or not. In a 2018 study involving 2,197 people with migraine, 25% of the participants who stopped or always avoided drinking did so because alcohol triggered migraine attacks. More than a third of the participants said that alcohol had this effect, with about 78% naming red wine as the most common alcohol trigger. Research shows that people with migraine may also experience related symptoms during a hangover.
Characterizing Pre-Headache (Prodrome) Features of Migraine Attacks: Results From the CaMEO Study
It will be crucial to have access to reliable resources on migraine as you work to manage this disease. The American Migraine Foundation offers extensive resources to help you explore your symptoms and treatment options. If your support system is lacking, consider joining a support group. Finding a community of people who understand exactly what you’re going through is like being welcomed home after a long, tiring day. Our Move Against Migraine support group is a place for you to connect with others (via Facebook) who live with migraine to exchange stories and find community and support. Did you know that 20% of women say they avoid pregnancy because of migraine?
Support Group: How to address anxiety while managing your drinking
In addition, seek care if you have migraines and you’re pregnant, have recently given birth, are older than 65, or have a history of chronic disease or cancer. The symptoms become so severe that they often lead to a hospital emergency room visit. There are also the side effects of drinking that might be to blame. Keeping track of migraine after drinking what you drink, what other migraine triggers you where exposed to (such as stress, jetlag, sleep lack etc.) and when you get a migraine can help. Knowing these triggers helps people with migraine manage their condition better.
- Does alcohol seem to affect your migraine attacks and symptoms?
- Assessing the percentage of drinking occasions after which hangover symptoms allows the HSS item scores to be interpreted as hangover susceptibility or proneness.
- A tendency toward migraine may also play a role in hangovers, especially hangovers that cause migraine-like headaches.
- Taking one before drinking isn’t recommended or known to be effective.
How long they last and how they feel depends on your type of migraine, your specific case, and how you manage symptoms. No study has yet attempted to simultaneously measure all of these variables, let alone in human subjects. While many of us enjoy a few alcoholic beverages with friends and family now and then, the consequences of overindulgence are famously unpleasant. Headache, nausea, fatigue, and general malaise are commonly experienced by over-imbibers and can be temporarily debilitating. The post-consumption headache is particularly common, but many find that not all sources of alcohol are equally likely to result in this symptom.
Research still needs to determine which remedy is most effective. However, a headache after drinking will usually resolve itself over time. Those diagnosed with a specific type of headache may be more prone to develop a specific type of headache after consuming alcohol. This chemical is a vasodilator, which increases the size of blood vessels in the body.
A person should try keeping a migraine diary for a few weeks or months to observe trends in their headache patterns. However, a 2019 study found higher rates of vodka consumption among drinkers with frequent migraine attacks. The response to alcohol varies from person to person, and there is no alcohol that absolutely will not cause a migraine or other headache. Most studies point to red wine as a common headache culprit, particularly in people with migraine. These individuals commonly cite wine, especially red wine, as a migraine trigger.
Migraine Medical Food
If you have chronic headaches, identifying and avoiding your triggers can substantially improve your quality of life. To determine if drinking (which may have a weaker correlation with migraines than previously thought) is one of yours, it’s helpful to learn the signs of alcohol-induced headaches. Around 30% of people who experience recurrent migraines report alcohol as a trigger, and 10% of patients cite it as a frequent or consistent trigger. Here’s what to know about preventing migraine attacks when also drinking alcohol, plus how to treat one if it’s too late.
If you’re interested in connecting with more people in the migraine community, we recommend joining our Facebook support group, Move Against Migraine. There, you will find a wonderful community of people who are ready to listen and lift each other up. It’s important to work with your obstetrician and your headache doctor when you have migraine to establish a safe treatment plan.